Game On Chattanooga

John WadeMonday, November 25, 2013

I had the chance to speak with Derrick Sheets, owner of Game On Chattanooga, and he told me about the food drive event he is hosting called Grub from Gamers, where he is raising money and collecting food for the local food bank during the upcoming holiday season.

John Wade: Hello Derrick, Why don't we start off with why you decided to put on the Grub for Games event.

Derrick Sheets: Well, the plan was to get more involved in the community as a whole, and I think that is one of the things that stores and organizers don't put enough emphasis on. Your city chooses to spend their gaming dollars with you, and it only makes sense to me to give back as much as possible. Chattanooga recently has grown a by leaps and bounds, and with it our food bank and other donation centers have been having a hard time keeping up.

John Wade: Was this something they reached out to you about or something you thought up yourself?

Derrick Sheets: I thought it up. I wanted to do something that lets gamers give back as a whole while still having fun and doing something they enjoy. I saw a similar event and thought, "That would be awesome to do!" So, I wanted to find something that the store community as a whole could do, and that sprung the idea of doing a fun event for the different games we play at Game On. I wanted to find something that every Magic player could participate in, so I settled on a limited format.

John Wade: When you announced the event, how was it received by your players?

Derrick Sheets: Everyone seems to love to idea. I already have dozens of people who said they were coming to play. Some guys who haven't played magic in six+ years are going to come out and draft.

John Wade: And you think that this event is what is getting them to come back into the gaming community?

Derrick Sheets: Even if they're not going to "come back" into the gaming community, they're certainly going to come back to play in some of these events. Magic is one of those games that everyone who steps into a store played at some point. Even if they haven't picked up a card in a decade, they're still interested in helping people while playing a game, and that's exactly what I wanted to do

John Wade: What does the food bank think of this idea?

Derrick Sheets: They dig it. Lots of organizations do food drive events; so I'm sure they think it's just another 50 cans or so, but I'm expecting a lot of stuff to come in. Even if we get 30 people for our draft, that's at least $300 dollars in donations, that's 1,200 meals we're providing for the needy families in Chattanooga.

John Wade: Are you also open to taking donations outside of the event as well?

Derrick Sheets: For sure, we're even giving discounts to people who are donating stuff next week.

Thursday, November 21, will be Game On Chattanooga's first annual Magic: The Giving food drive event! All donations will go to the Chattanooga Food Bank!

Players will play in a Booster Draft, but with some crazy twists!

Entry fee will be either $10 or 10 canned food items.

The goal is to raise as much food as possible for the Chattanooga Food Bank, to help us do this, we'll help you cheat!

Cheating Rules:

During the draft, any player may stop the draft by saying the word "ding" at this time; a player may take two cards out of one pack for the cost of 2 canned goods. This may be done at any time during the draft, during any pack, but a player can only ever take 2 cards out of the pack.

After the draft, any player may trade cards with any other player at the costs of 2 canned goods per player.

Players may also add cards to their draft deck. Any card may be added to the deck, at the cost of 10 cans a card. Want to play with your Dark Confidants? Greatness at any cost!

At the start of the match, either player may secretly write down the number of cans they wish to donate to add to their die roll. For example, I can donate 5 cans do add +5 to my roll to see who goes first.

Need to mulligan? Mulligan for free for the cost of a can! Each subsequent mulligan costs an extra can.

CanTripping! Donate 2 cans; for the rest of the turn, whenever you play a spell, draw a card.

John Wade: I appreciate the time Derrick; it sounds like a great event for a wonderful local cause.

If you are a store or TO running a unique event, know of a group of players helping out the gaming or the community at large, or a judge going above and beyond, we want to hear those stories. Let me know about these stores in the feedback and we will try and use them in future features!

John Wade has been playing Magic since 1995 and joined Wizards of the Coast in November of 2012. He is now a part of the trade marketing team, where he writes content for the WPN site about our programs and events for our retailers.